Cotton is a crop of great importance within the agricultural sector, supplying versatile fiber used for the production of clothing, home furnishings, and other industrial products. Cotton is used for virtually every type of clothing, from coats and jackets to foundation garments. Cotton's uses in home furnishings range from bedding to window shades. Industrial products containing cotton include wall coverings, book bindings, zipper tapes, medical supplies, industrial thread and tarpaulins. Additional cotton products derive from seed processing, including oil and seed meal.
Modern commercial cotton crops grow as vigorous, compact shrubs with a life cycle of just one growing season, bearing little resemblance to their ancestry as tree species of the family Malvacae found in several tropical areas globally. The growing cycle of the various species and varieties of commercial cotton varies in duration, yet despite plant breeding advancements, the sequence of flowering, fruit production and boll opening is fixed. The cotton plant remains intolerant of freezing temperatures and requires a relatively long growing season. Cotton thrives best with conditions of plentiful sunshine and soil moisture early in the growing season, followed by intense heat and ample but not excessive soil moisture as the plant fruits and its bolls fill, ripen and finally open.
The biology of the cotton plant gives context to the cotton industry's technology needs. It is the cotton grower's responsibility to maximize production and quality as weather, insects and other pests adversely impact growing conditions. Cotton growers in temperate climates have particular interest in technologies ensuring production of maximum fiber yields and quality within the period of days each year conducive to cotton growth, referred to as managing for earlier production, or earliness. By redirecting cotton plants energy into filling, ripening and opening mature bolls, rather than in producing new growth, harvesting can be done earlier without loss of yield.
Abnormal weather conditions, such as cool and/or wet conditions in mid-summer may stimulate the cotton plant to produce excessive terminal growth. Terminal growth is defined as new growth at the top of the plant. This may cause significant cotton yield and/or quality losses due to conversion of nutrients and moisture into terminal growth instead of filling and maturing existing bolls, i.e. foliar growth rather than reproductive growth. Such late season terminal growth also makes the cotton plant more susceptible to disease and insect attack. New foliage attracts insects, for example, fall armyworms, which feed on the nutrients within the new leaves, and bollworms and stinkbugs which feed on ripening bolls and cause damage to bolls by destroying seed, staining the lint and in many cases causing the bolls to rot due to secondary infections by plant pathogens.
Herbicides/defoliants and plant growth regulators have been used to completely defoliate cotton plants at harvest time. However, there are currently no means available to cotton growers to remove or control the terminal growth of the cotton plant in such growing conditions. Mechanical control (or ‘topping’ the cotton plant) is not practiced, and would not be practical given the large scale of modern cotton farming. Without a means to remove or control terminal growth when such situations develop, cotton growers suffer significant monetary losses due to reductions in yield.